


Something something…heart metaphor…oh, to hell with it.

by fleurdelisandbees



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, His Last Vow, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Romance, Set during His Last Vow, in a quiet moment, my first Sherlock fic, the one we should have seen on tv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 17:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7766083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurdelisandbees/pseuds/fleurdelisandbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finally goes home to 221B Baker Street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something something…heart metaphor…oh, to hell with it.

John knew Sherlock was aware that he was there. He was always aware.

Still, he stood in the doorway for a long minute or two, watching his friend play his violin with his back to him as he stared out the window. John was conscious of the weight of his bag at his feet, but it didn’t feel like a burden. It felt right. As though he had set an anchor down.

If Sherlock could hear that last thought, he’d tell John he was as foolishly romantic in his head as he was in his blog…but then, that might be a touch hypocritical. Fact was, Sherlock often seemed sentimental and romantic himself–in his own aloof way–when he took up his violin. He tended to both play and compose dramatic, angsty pieces, and the figure he struck while he illustrated those compositions on the air with the enthusiastic end of his bow was anything but clinical and emotionally removed.

It cut John. Right down to…oh christ, his heart? His soul? Ridiculous, cliche stand-ins for the thing he really meant. To something deeper than there were words for. Something as nameless as it was unidentifiable. Something like Sherlock.

He had missed this–witnessing this, here in the lounge of 221B. Especially with Sherlock’s back to him so that whatever emotion John felt at the moment was free to play across his face without worry of being caught and analyzed, like a bug, by the great detective.

But should he be playing right now?

_I believe I’m bleeding internally. My pulse is very erratic._

He’d only just got home from the hospital this morning. John would have arrived sooner, but he’d waited for Mary to leave the house before he went in to stuff the few possessions he needed into his duffel bag.

And now he was truly, finally home. In a place where the both of them could exist again, together. Sherlock and John. The hat detective and the soon-to-be-bachelor. If Sherlock would have him stay.

John felt a wave of irrational guilt sweep over him. He’d left Sherlock alone in this flat all this time, and for what?

Who had been here to make sure he ate? Slept? Behaved himself in public? Mrs. Hudson could only do so much.

John swallowed the lump in his throat even as he felt a pang of sheer longing and homesickness shoot down through the center of his chest and radiate outward until he almost felt he couldn’t breathe. Funny how he hadn’t felt it until he was actually standing in the very place he missed. Looking at the man he…

the man he–

what?

John knew what. He flexed his left hand and clenched it, trying to steel himself, reign himself in. Why did it make him so fucking angry to admit that he missed this man? That he…that he loved him?

 _Time lost,_ something in the back of his mind muttered. _So much time wasted._

He took a deep breath in through his nose and waited. Any moment now Sherlock would turn to him, put his violin aside, make his pronouncement: “Finally.” Or maybe offer him tea. And that would be his way of telling him to stay, that it was fine. That it was all fine.

Indeed, as though sensing his cue, Sherlock turned slowly, still playing, and finally glanced along his instrument to meet John’s stare. He did not stop playing, though his gaze traveled from John’s face, to his bag, and back again. A tiny, irrepressible smile curled at the corners of his lips.

And John still couldn’t breathe. He may have stopped.

He felt himself moving, suddenly, stepping over his bag and striding across the room, uncertain what his plan was, exactly, but letting his body go on autopilot to do as it wished.

He stopped about a foot from his friend. Sherlock quirked a brow, still playing. John was done with the game, and he reached out.

He pinched the neck of the instrument, silencing the strings.

Sherlock froze, his eyes betraying nothing as he removed his bow and straightened, lowering the instrument to dangle in his hand. He regarded John with an intrigued tilt of his head and the slight, typical narrowing of his eyes: that look which so clearly said that John was in the process of being deduced.

At this, John smiled reflexively. He stepped in closer, into Sherlock’s personal space, his expression relaxing into seriousness as he entered the circle of the other man’s body heat.

Sherlock blinked, pale green eyes flicking from John’s to his lips and back again, almost nervously.

John reached out again and slid his left hand around so he could cup the back of Sherlock’s long, pale neck. He applied subtle pressure until Sherlock leaned and their foreheads touched.

John nuzzled Sherlock’s nose with his own, softly, his heart pounding in his ears and a vague shakiness thrumming through him. He felt almost sick with adrenaline, with the risk. He tried to speak, and found he couldn’t. Then tried again. “I wanted to be here earlier,” he finally managed, in a whisper.

He could hear Sherlock breathing. He wasn’t the only one shaking, it seemed. So he closed the gap and caught Sherlock’s soft, stunned lips with his own. He made plain all the tenderness he felt, and his senseless but genuine apologies.

After a moment he pulled back a bit abruptly, too nerved-up waiting to see what the response would be. He found that he couldn’t back away much, as Sherlock moved in closer, if that was possible. He looked up into the haunting eyes which were shadowed and fixed intently on him.

“It’s okay,” Sherlock replied in the same hushed tone. “You’re home now.”

This time they both leaned in and met each other equally, lips yielding under lips, breath mingling, tongues seeking gently, softly, slowly. Perfectly. Always.


End file.
